Tuesday, December 25, 2007

GP Stuttgart is over, and we have a new leader for the Player of the Year race: Shuhei Nakamura, Japanese level five pro, is the winner of the first big batch of points this year. His unorthodox draft strategy took him to a win, with a deck that met very mixed reactions among the spectators. However, it’s hard to argue with success. His runner-up, Robert van Medevoort, failed to produce his Profane Command in the finals, but he had a pretty good deck (which you can of course find here in the coverage).

The host country Germany brought about half of all competitors to the trade fair in Sindelfingen, and two of them made Top 8. Marc Vogt had a remarkable run with a clean 12-0 and just one bye, and Raul Porojan made his second GP Top 8 after GP Strasbourg. We saw a number of old favorites, as well as some rising stars here in Strasbourg. Marijn Lybaert was among them, missing Top 8 by a hair. The Belgian kid was trumped only by his National champion Fried Meulders, who notched a Top 8 appearance on his virtual achievemets badge.

GP Stuttgart was the biggest individual Grand Prix this year, and just as big as GP Amsterdam. Lorwyn Limited is over as a format, because the next event in the Magic year will be the Morningtide prereleases. Stay tuned to magicthegathering.com, where we will pick up with the Player of the Year race after that, and see if Shuhei Nakamura defends his early lead across the many formats of Pro Tours and Grand Prix in 2008!//---------------------------------------------------------------//Name: Joel CalafellAge: 19Residence: Barcelona, SpainOccupation: Student

Number of GP Top 8s: 1

Number of PTs played: 4

Biggest Magic success: Top 16 at GP Bilbao 2005, co-designer of the deck "Cepmacio Breakfast" (not sure if this is a success)

Tournament result: 13-2

How did you prepare for the tournament? Made two drafts on MTGO the day before leaving